PELNI orders six new vessels from PT PAL

JAKARTA (JP): State shipping firm PT Pelni has ordered six Caraka Jaya 4,180 DWT freighters from state shipbuilder PT PAL in Surabaya to replace its old ships.

Pelni's president, Roesman, said yesterday his company was negotiating with state-owned PT PANN Multi Finance about the leasing agreements.

He said Pelni was expanding its freight service and making this its core business along with inter-island passenger services.

"This cargo business will be our core business although several of our freighters still lose money," Roesman was quoted by Antara as saying at the company's 45th anniversary.

Pelni has 20 cargo vessels with combined tonnage of 35,840 dead weight tons.

Cargo carried by Pelni fluctuated from 840,569 tons in 1994 to 833,505 tons in 1995 and 911,971 tons last year.

Besides cargo vessels, Pelni has 19 passenger ships which can carry 23,608 passengers and serve 75 ports across the country.

The company expects to get another passenger ship from German shipyard Jos L. Meyer. The new ship will increase passenger capacity to 25,611.

Last year, Pelni transported 4.79 million passengers, down from 5.2 million people in 1995.

The company expects to carry 5.5 million people this year.

The company posted a Rp 27.37 billion (US$11.3 million) net profit last year, up from Rp 12.03 billion in 1995.

It aims to lift its net profit to Rp 39.59 billion this year.

Pelni is one of PAL's largest domestic customers. Other large customers are the Djakarta Lloyd oceangoing shipping company, state oil company Pertamina, state electricity firm PLN and the government.

PAL's executive vice president, Suleman Wiriadidjaja, said PAL had trouble selling its ships to private companies because of a lack of soft credit.

Suleman said the government or the central bank should help local ship builders by providing soft loans to companies buying locally made ships.

He said if the government did nothing to help, private companies would keep buying ships overseas.

The government has set up PT PANN Multi Finance to help local ship builders.

PANN Multi Finance buys ships from PAL and leases then domestically.

PANN, with soft loans from the central bank, has bought more than 30 Caraka Jaya freighters from PAL and leased them to local companies.

But PANN's purchases have recently been restricted by a lack of new soft credit from the central bank.

Faced with a tight domestic market, PAL has been promoting its ships overseas where buyers have easy access to long-term credit.

Suleman said recently his company had orders for dozens of ships worth US$1 billion from Germany, Britain and the Netherlands.

PAL is overseen by the Supervisory Board for Strategic Industries, which is chaired by the state minister of research and technology, B.J. Habibie, who is also PAL's president. (rid)